Some 2,200 of us made the trek to Hot Springs, N.C., this past weekend for the third annual Wildgoose Festival. We gathered along the roaring French Broad River and the Appalachian Trail amid the Blue Ridge mountains for four days of “spirituality, justice, music and art,” with a hundred speakers and performers, food and hiking, prayer and preaching. It was renewing and uplifting for one and all.

Usually it seems God has one of three directions for us: "Come follow me"; "Stay with me" (and "Keep watch!"); or "Go and tell them ..." The first is the call to discipleship; the second, a summons to accompaniment and companionship; the third, a push into prophetic ministry, to go forth and announce to the world of war and injustice God's desire for peace and justice.

Jesus, according to the four Gospels, welcomed everyone with his healing embrace. In fact, his outreach began with those who were not welcomed anywhere else. He placed them at the center of his community of peace, love and nonviolence. He put them in the center of his nonviolent vision, his all-inclusive mission.